


i should be better but i'm worse

by alaynerivers



Category: UnREAL (TV)
Genre: Ableism, F/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 22:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9036389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alaynerivers/pseuds/alaynerivers
Summary: Adam in the S1 finaleSomehow, he forgot. She’s his producer and this is a game.





	

Quinn says, “Look, I care about Rachel. You’re not going to be doing her any favors by running off the grid with her.”

Quinn says, “Rachel’s fucked up, Adam. Do you think you can really take care of her? Fat chance. I don’t think you can even take care of yourself. Spoiled brats always have problems with that.”

Quinn says, “She has serious issues. I don’t mean to burst your bubble here. No wait, I do! Stop being an idiot, and think about how you are screwing yourself here, too, buddy.”

Adam deflates or spirals or something to that effect. He can’t deal with Rachel’s issues. He can barely take care of himself in this mess.

He decides that staying on the show will be the best thing for the both of them. Rachel can get her professional accolades with Royal Renovations, and he can get a life back. Maybe she’ll forgive him. Eventually. And maybe her work can keep her head on straight.

 

Adam knows that in this world, there are categories. In his categories of humans, there are people and then there are women and then there are women he’s screwed (over). Rachel is officially in the last category.

It’s the only way he can possibly justify not seeing her screwing him over coming.

 

Going home is like sliding into an old skin. Father ignoring him steadfastly, and refusing to even take his calls. The castle he ran through as a child, all golden glow and history. There was nothing he could touch, and it made him feel like he barely existed. He broke a china plate when he was ten, some monstrosity that belonged to Queen Victoria. He had skidded into a cabinet that held it. His father was angry for the next six months, and could barely stand to have Adam in the room during dinners.

At least the manor will look great on camera, Adam thinks. But acceptance is what he’s always wanted. Here, that desire is stronger, come home to roost.

 

Through the week, Rachel ignores him. She is so perfectly together and professional that Adam is taken aback. He’s used to consoling and cajoling women who he’s screwed (over). He thinks space must be what she needs. He sometimes looks for her or leans into her unconsciously. She looks at him like he’s a prop and backs away.

Whenever he can, he ignores her, too.

 

Adam picks Anna, beautiful and intelligent, a porcelain doll. He wonders what it would take for her to shatter. He wonders if picking her will be enough to mollify his family. He wonders if she actually thinks she loves him or if she’s playing her part well like Grace. 

Either way, he can play his. He wonders how this marriage can even function. The last time he spent time with Anna, actual time and not having sex, they were on camera and she’d admitted to liking theater. He’d normally think that would be discussed on a first date, and he cannot believe he is marrying her.

Adam cuts off the thoughts and stops wondering. If he thinks about any of this too much, he will run and it will all be for nothing. Nothing for Rachel either, and she’s the one who got hurt in this, he thinks. He can at least give her a show.

When he looks back at this moment, he can’t help but wonder if his doom is Rachel’s fault or his. Somehow, in almost running away with her and boundary crossing and (fantastic) sex, he forgot. She’s his producer and this is a game.

 

He leaves the confessional booth after Rachel cries at him, broken and off and like every woman he’s ever wanted to avoid. Now, Adam is sure that Quinn was right. He couldn’t take care of Rachel or be responsible for her. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with her, but her words and tears will jangle in his head and distract him if he lets that happen.

He focuses, instead. Anna. Prince Charming. The fairytale. He can do this. He’s always been good at pretending.

 

Or he can stand by like an idiot as the fairytale falls apart. Well, not exactly. But he’s fallen down the Everlasting rabbit hole and he wanted one thing from this vulgar show, to improve his public reputation. That is something he will not get, and he was used and not paid and he cannot believe this happened. Now, he’ll be an Everlasting tabloid star, the man stood up at the altar. He can’t believe Rachel could do this to him. 

 

 

It takes him a few minutes, days, weeks. He has to realign and reconsider, Rachel the woman he slept with and Rachel the producer. 

If he thinks while considering everything (instead of just Rachel’s crumpled face at the airport and Rachel hysterically crying in a church and Rachel’s smile when she said she would run away with him), he sees how Rachel this is. How stupid he was.

Rachel makes grown women cry without a second thought, and he thinks she might have even liked some of them. Rachel wanted to hurt him. Of course she could throw him under the bus.

 

 

This chance to make his life better is another in his list of screw-ups. He’s good at screwing up his life himself. This might be the first time someone took it upon themselves to do it for him. 

There’s nothing to do with this, but hope people pity him and act the jilted lover instead. (He already has an assistant setting up a few talk show appearances. Damage control for the damage control.)

Adam might not be acting this time.


End file.
